On the Anniversary of the Outbreak of World War II, Polish President Demands Reparations from Germany

Polish President Karol Navrocki today in Gdansk, on the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, demanded reparations and compensation from Germany for crimes committed during those war years, so that Warsaw would not have to take out loans for new weapons.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk appealed that the lesson from the wartime horrors that began on September 1, 1939, must be solidarity among allies. 

„I appeal here, at Westerplatte, to the Chancellor of Germany, to the German people: let us resolve the issue of reparations and compensation, bearing in mind historical justice but also the future,“ Navrocki said during the main ceremony marking the 87th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.

At the monument to the heroes who defended the military barracks and depot during September 1939 from German attacks, Navrocki reminded that in that tragedy, which must not be forgotten, 17 percent of Poland’s population perished—six million, half of whom were Polish Jews, and 90 percent were civilians.

„A true categorical allied declaration on Poland requires that our allies from Berlin and our neighbors pay us compensation, which Poland will invest in the armed forces, in the Polish military industry, so that we do not have to take out Western loans, so that we get what belongs to us,“ said the Polish president.

The legally controversial and disputed issue of reparations is being raised by Polish opposition conservative nationalists, who, while in power until autumn 2023, calculated that Germany would have to pay Poland about 1.3 trillion euros. They do not recognize the argument that Poland officially renounced reparations in the 1950s, as they emphasize that at the time communist Poland was merely a satellite of the USSR. 

Navrocki today accused Germany, but also other Western allies, including those across the Atlantic, of not knowing or not wanting to see the truth that Germans did not even need Hitler to despise Poles.

„If Europe is to be united, if the alliance is to be real, if good neighborliness or friendship is to be achieved, we finally need actions, not just nice and pleasant words,“ Navrocki said.

The Polish president thanked all Poles and Germans who are making efforts to finally resolve the issue that Polish victims of German crimes do not have their own monument in Berlin, although the government of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has already managed to reach an agreement with Germany to speed up the process, and there is already an improvised symbolic monument at the site.

„It is not true alliance or friendship if we cannot erect a monument to Polish victims of World War II in Berlin. If the Polish minority does not have the same rights as the German minority in Poland,“ Navrocki said today.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk today, on the anniversary at Westerplatte, appealed for solidarity among allies and that it not remain an empty phrase, and alongside that lesson drawn from wartime suffering, he added another—that Europe must not allow itself to be overwhelmed again by a fascist wave.

„We must not allow anyone, neither here at home in Poland, nor in Europe, nor in the USA, to permit a recurrence of the fascist wave of aggression and contempt. Otherwise, the heroism of our soldiers—here at Westerplatte, at Hel, of the Home Army, of those who stormed Monte Cassino—would be in vain,“ Tusk said.

Historians symbolically mark the beginning of World War II with the first salvos from the German cruiser Schleswig-Holstein on the small Polish military outpost at Westerplatte near Gdansk, although the war for Great Britain and France began on September 3, when they declared war on Germany.

Russia considers the beginning of the Great Patriotic War to be Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, while for the USA, the war also began only on December 7, 1941, with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.